Blog

Postcode lottery

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:01:35 +0100

The NHS has been put under unprecedented pressure to save money. Billions of pounds are being cut. Despite politicians smooth words this is affecting front line services now. There are now restrictions on many operations in this county. See this link for all the banned or ‘low priority’ procedures. Your GP is powerless to influence this.

Chemical cosh

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:33:10 +0100

News item recently regarding the overuse of ‘antipsychotic’ medication in those with dementia. Our area health authority had already requested that GP’s research how many people are on these drugs and why.
We have a good elderly psychiatry service locally so we would have thought we didn’t need to use these drugs in place of being able to refer to specialists. Having run our audit we found only 3 people with dementia being treated with these drugs, all of which had been started by the specialists because of intractable difficulties managing their behaviour.
So be reassured that in this area GP’s aren’t sedating people unnecessarily.

New annual health check ups

Tue, 7 Jun 2011 12:06:01 +0100

We have been waiting for the Health Authority to initiate the much lauded National annual health check system to come into Dorset, but until then we have re-designed our health checking system.
There is a system in place called the Quality and Outcomes Framework known as QOF. This came into force in 2004 as an incentive and productivity scheme to encourage all GP’s in England to record and monitor health and illnesses. So those with blood pressure need a check every 9 months, those who have a stroke need blood pressure, cholesterol etc every year and Diabetics a full checkup every year etc. There are many many different tests according to what disease you might have.
If you have several conditions this all gets a bit complicated, getting asked for different blood or urine tests at different times of the year. So we have unified all the tests you might need into one single annual checkup. When you are due for these you will get a form attached to your repeat prescription asking you to attend for the appropriate test. This will make your life and ours a bit more organised.
Any comments about this or other issues can be sent to us via the patient participation group described on the home page.

Aspirin and cancer

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:44:56 +0000

You probably heard the news stories following the publication of some research in the medical journal The Lancet. What does it all mean? Here is a summary of the research relating to the benefits and harms of aspirin.

Aspirin use has been shown to reduce the risk of dying from many cancers.

You need to take aspirin for at least 5 years, at a dose of 75mg. There doesn’t appear to be any benefit if you are under 55 years old, so this applies only to those aged over 55.

How much benefit will you get?
For every 29 people who take aspirin for a period of 5 years, 20 years later, one of them would not die from cancer because they took the aspirin. The other 28 would have taken aspirin every day for 5 years but had no benefit from it.

We also know that if you have had a stroke or a heart attack, aspirin reduces your risk of having a further heart attack or stroke, so for some years aspirin has been recommended to those who have had a heart attack, stroke or mini-stroke/TIA (regardless of age).

We used to recommend aspirin in some people who were high risk of heart attacks/strokes but who had not had one. However the benefit to these people (reducing the risk of heart attacks/strokes) is very small so as to make it not worth it.

What are the harms of taking aspirin?
Over a 5 year period of taking aspirin, one in 667 people would have a serious stomach or other bleed, that they would not have had if they had not been taking aspirin. The other 666 people would take aspirin but have no serious bleeding.

There are also certain people who should not take aspirin at all (for example those who are allergic to it).

How does aspirin reduce the risk of cancer?
Aspirin reduces inflammation within the body, and this may be how it reduces cancers, but no one is exactly sure how this occurs.

So should you take aspirin?
Firstly, this applies only to those over 55. Those under 55 have not been shown to benefit.
Secondly, we strongly recommend that if you are thinking of taking aspirin, please discuss this with your doctor/nurse, so they can take into account your own medical history.

This information was copied from the GP Update team, a small group of GPs who turn research evidence into material that is useful for GPs, practice nurses and their patients.

Open all hours

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:53:35 +0000

Not quite, but as we are over 5250 patients now (5325 in fact, an increase of over 1000 in just over 5 years) we have to offer more time outside of our contracted 8-6.30pm. To achieve this we will open for several Saturday mornings from the New Year. Exactly when hasn’t been worked out yet. This will be a temporary arrangement as the word on the (medical) street is that these ‘extended hours’ surgeries will get pulled from next April as part of the first wave of NHS cutbacks (there will be many more I’m afraid).